Can corrupted game play be a way of life in AOC?

I want to ask the community if corrupted way of living and leveling in AOC can have advantages vs a lawful one? Can a guild devote to this kind of an activity by recruiting players to focus on corruption and settling in a village/city and making money by looting valuables from innocent players? Perhaps signing deals with other guilds not to siege them if they give 20% of their profits to them or something? Any ideas on how this kind of a game play could be possible? Or, if it is, then the guild has to be moving a lot from one node to another constantly even if they light up red on the map? And why should corrupted players necessarily light up red on map anyways, there should be a way to conceal it to counter-act bounty hunter abilities?

The way the corruption system is currently set up, being corrupted all the doesn't have any benefits and is in fact a detriment to your character. A guild of all reds will be at a significant disadvantage if the corruption system stays as it is.

You get alts of say 10 players, with 1 of them super geared tank and the rest just there to protect and heal tank with no valuable gear. You run along the open world to kill quester's and gatherers, you loot them and sell it to the market. You just make sure the tank doesn't lose all it's gear.

You could do that Valerian, but, those ten will easily be wiped out by a group that's even smaller than those 10. Now you're saying that nine of those ten have almost no gear, they will get torn to shreds faster than they can think. Now even with a super geared tank, how will the other nine stay alive if they focus those nine and the tank last?

They're making it so you can gank, but it's a system that makes people think twice about doing said ganking.

What if you pay to turn a blind eye, or fast enough to get away. Besides most people will be busy raiding or crafting and doing stuff to help their nodes. Most people won't always get out of their way to run long distances just to kill us. Unless your a bounty guild where you devote most of your time to get me then maybe.

If I get paid to turn a blind eye, I'll take your money and kill you anyway, and I believe a lot of folk would do the same. If you're in a place where people are farming, you won't be too out of the way for people ot come and wipe you out. If you're in a remote location, farmers will just avoid you and you'll be left out in the stix with nobody to kill.

You shouldn't underestimate the lengths people will go to kill someone else without any sort of repercussion.

I'm talking about experiences in MMOs I have had, and I've been playing them since 2001 and have seen every type of player along the way. Trust me, there will be no advantage to being a red player.

Eve online has a harsh death system too, and yet you see lots of players taking on the pirate path. Infact, it's a career, they make lots of money pirating. I'm hoping that that some nodes or the thieves guild in AOC would provide some benefits or cover for the corruption path.

If any of the nodes help with corruption it would likely be religious nodes dedicated to less than savory patrons. But I don't think it will help reduce/remove corruption. I would prefer not having an in-game NPC thief guild, there will be plenty of player guilds that do that.

This feels like something that might be expanded in future updates/expansions. For the time being its not meant to be a play style like pirate faction was in Archeage. Its just a punishment system to help discourage unfair pvp encounters.

The difference between Eve and Ashes is that Ashes gives you stat penalties the more you pk whereas, as far as I am aware, pk'ers in Eve are at full strength no matter how much they kill. Eventually, your character will become ineffective at combat and just won't be able to compete with other people of similar level and skill because of the stat penalties corruption gives you.

i think the stat debuff is ridiculous, i would rather drop everything i have equipped and held every time i die than to only drop some stuff and have a worsening stat debuff. It does more than discourage griefing, it discourages PvP entirely. in which case you may as well not even have the option. I cant think of any time when it will be beneficial to me to kill someone and get a stat debuff, chance of dropping items, general vicinity shown on map and an XP penalty. If there is such a benefit please enlighten me.

The only time you get a stat debuff is when you become corrupted. So don't do shit that gets you corrupted, then you don't have to worry. You are correct in that there is no benefit to being corrupted, kinda the point. Killing other people in legitimately flagged pvp does NOT give you a stat debuff. Nobody ever promised you a ffa full-loot gankbox. If you don't like it, there are a bunch of survival mmos out there with full loot ganking. I think one of them, maybe Pantheon, has even stated that their stat debuff is permanent, do enough dodgy shit, and you will need to reroll that character.

We are yet to see the level that corruption effects you. Personally i think the idea currently is poor design. As i understand it now it discourages you from chasing people away from gathering, dungeon, or hunting areas (to prevent advancement of another Node). Players know all they have to do is not attack back and you get flagged. Now your stuck with corruption, they dropped some lumber and gained some negative XP. The death penalty for a non-combatant should be a deterrent just as much as the corruption debuff for people actively initiating PvP. (more severe for massive level difference/ganking)

It is. It is twice the normal death penalty exp for just not attacking back. Any death is going to gain you exp penalties, Pve or Pvp. Purple is the base. Green 2x. Red 4-6x depending on level difference. Corruption and exp penalties are two seperate systems. The only way you are reducing corruption is through death to a non-aligned player.

What if you pay to turn a blind eye, or fast enough to get away. Besides most people will be busy raiding or crafting and doing stuff to help their nodes. Most people won't always get out of their way to run long distances just to kill us. Unless your a bounty guild where you devote most of your time to get me then maybe.

oh really? Then don't come into the node I have called home because I WILL drop whatever I'm doing to come hunt your ass and will make damn sure whatever guild I join has the same ideals. You have been warned

To the OPs question though....yes, it should be viable but it will be challenging which is what will draw many to a corrupt lifestyle.

Well if the corrupted player isn't a play style or is not going to be a play style, then same goes for bounty hunting? What would be the use of having a bounty system if there are no corrupt players? There won't be any red dots on the map! Maybe that is the point, but believe me the community would much rather have it as another play style than just a punishment system.

I for one going to ask for keeping the current flagging system but also having the corrupted player having a timer before he/she start blinking red on the map. Now this gives a chance to take cover in a thieves guild like a sanctuary, but the bounty board will high lite your name for "wanted" until your dead for gold. So you will remain red for a period of time and will drop gear if a bounty hunter hunts you down in that time frame. If the bounty hunter fails to hunt you down in that time frame, you will turn purple permanently and your name and bounty $ will be displayed on the bounty board for ever until someone kills you and claims the payout. Difference is, he won't drop gear or lose stats anymore, just a big payout for the bounty hunter.

I'll withhold judgement for now, Hopefully it can be tested properly and doesnt feel clunky or overly punishing. If it was designed differently Corruption would have the potential to be a cool mechanic with npcs and citys along with the interaction between other PC's if it wasnt used as a ganking deterrent.

Well if the corrupted player isn't a play style or is not going to be a play style, then same goes for bounty hunting? What would be the use of having a bounty system if there are no corrupt players? There won't be any red dots on the map! Maybe that is the point, but believe me the community would much rather have it as another play style than just a punishment system.

NO, the community would NOT prefer it to be a play style, they want it to be a punishment for killing innocents.

[EU, PvX, Social, Semi-Hardcore]

Responding to OP, I think some people will play the game in the corrupted state as much as they can. I'm think that most of the corrupted character playerbase will be people with Alt accounts trying out what the corrupted system is like without messing up their main characters. I also don't know whether a "corrupted guild" would ever be able to control a node. I think there would be to many players that would stop this from happening because of all the possible risks it poses.On the other hand, I'm sure there will be guilds dedicated to being corrupt players, but I don't think they will have a guild in a populated or semi populated area because of he risk of them dying and messing up their corrupt states.

For a game : "not every innocent is innocent". Some just deserve to be killed. So this corruption system must leave a small safe-corruption zone. Several kills of "innocent" w/o losing stats or loot. In other case players might interfere with what you are doing, insult you, BOT, SCAM etc. w/o any chance to punish them. Or an accidental kill, for example, when pvping and someone not flagged comes to that area on purpose. Other pole, is when someone kills innocents over and over, preventing them to play, this should be punished by stat loss(IMO bad idea), drop of items (good idea), possibly NPC service denial...

If I understand it well enough there is adventage in form of the loot from players (especially non-combatants) but the disadvatages are bounties and dropping your equipment when killed. Though I can see some players choosing this path for role-playing reasons, profit or thrill.

Can't you save your PvE for PvE events? Only be allowed to do PvE at specific times, and under specific conditions and otherwise be punished for it?

You wouldn't like that, would you?

Adding punishment to even occasional PK / PvP engagements over resources would put PvE players in very overpowered position.

They could farm out all resource nodes, then monopolize resources, depriving other players of the very items they need for their progress.

If every occasional PK is punished, those PvE players could abuse this and go green all the time, knowing it doesn't pay off for other players to attack them, and then just farm out entire zone, and keep resources for themselves, and ask ridiculous prices for them on market.